14 January home sales for $1 million or more

Luxury sales tapered off in January in Sarasota County after a December that was one for the record books.

Fourteen homes or condominiums sold for $1 million or more last month, amounting to $27.4 million, or an average of $1.96 million.

By comparison, December saw 47 luxury properties sell for a total of $85 million and an average price of $1.8 million. Election year politics and the fear of higher capital-gains taxes prompted many sellers to rush for a December closing, high-end agents said of the December sales.

Last month, three properties on Manasota Key and two on Lido Key changed hands.

One of those included the highest-priced sale for December: a 7,415-square-foot house on Lido's Westway Drive that went from one trust to another for $6.35 million. The house last sold for $13.2 million in December 2003.

Second on the list of the most expensive properties for Sarasota County was a 5,248-square-foot house on Manasota Key Road for $2.41 million. The seller paid $5.05 million for the property in February 2006. Two years earlier, it had sold for $4.5 million.

The other top property sales:

A 2,470-square-foot home on Harbor Drive in Sarasota for $2.4 million. The house had last sold in 1977 for $150,000.

A Manasota Key Road house of 3,781 square feet for $2.4 million. The sellers bought the house for $725,000 in January 1998.

A unit in the Hyatt Siesta Key Beach resort that changed hands for $1.84 million.

A third Manasota Key Road house, this one 5,097 square feet, for $1.65 million. The previous owners paid $299,000 for the land in February 1995 and built the house in 2002.

A Lido property on North Polk Drive totaling 3,085 square feet was sold for $1.65 million. The previous owners paid $1.8 million in November 2006.

A 3,042-square-foot house on Sarasota's West Royal Flamingo Drive for $1.46 million. The previous owner inherited the house in July 2000.

A 2,829-square-foot house on Siesta Key's North Sandy Hook Road for $1.38 million.

A 3,793-square-foot house on Osprey's Fernwalk Lane for $1.34 million. The sellers paid $780,000 in February 2009.